Follow

Japan Earthquake: Two Weeks Later

Two weeks after northeastern Japan was struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami, the cost of the disaster is becoming clearer. The Japanese government has estimated the direct damage at as much as $310 billion, making it the world's costliest-ever natural disaster. As of today, more than 10,000 deaths have been confirmed and another 17,000 people remain missing. At Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, it raised suspicions of a possible breach when two workers waded into water 10,000 times more radioactive than normal and suffered skin burns. Earthquake survivors return to their homes to collect what they can find, to mourn their losses, and try to find a sense of normalcy in lives that have been ripped apart. Collected here are recent images from northeastern Japan, 14 days after it was rocked by disaster on a historic scale.

Hints:View this page full screen.
Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ←/→.

A bereaved family member of a victim of the earthquake and tsunami prays in front of a coffin at a temporary mass grave site in Higashi-Matsushima, in Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan March 24, 2011.
#

Members of the Japan Ground Self Defense Force carry the coffin of a victim of the earthquake and tsunami at a temporary mass grave site in Higashi Matsushima, northern Japan on March 23, 2011. Twenty-four bodies were buried temporarily on Tuesday and more are expected due to the lack of facilities to cremate bodies in the city. The site will be excavated to accommodate around 1,000 bodies in total.
#

Aviation Boatswain's Mate (Handler) 3rd Class Emmanuel Gedeon, from Miami, checks sprinklers during a countermeasure wash-down on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) off the coast of Japan, March 23, 2011 . Sailors scrubbed the external surfaces on the flight deck and island superstructure to remove potential radiation contamination while operating off the coast of Japan providing humanitarian assistance as directed in support of Operation Tomodachi.
#

These two photos show a road devastated by March 11 massive earthquake (left) and the same road after restoration in Naka, Japan. The highway company restored the 150-meter section of the highway linking Tokyo and the quake-damaged Ibaraki prefecture in six days. The photos were taken on March 11, 2011, left, and on March 17, 2011, right.
#

A car sits on headstones in a cemetery in Higashimatsushima City, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, Tuesday, March 22, 2011, following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeast coast of Japan.
#

Tayo Kitamura, 40, touches the covered body of her mother, Kuniko Kitamura, 69, after Japanese firemen discovered the dead woman inside the ruins of her home in Onagawa, northeastern Japan, Saturday, March 19, 2011, following the last week's earthquake and tsunami.
#

Family members and relatives transfer the bones of Masaichi Oyama, who was killed by the tsunami, by chopsticks into an urn the during a cremation ceremony March 24, 2011 in Kurihara , Japan. The family lost three family members from the earthquake and tsunami. Under Japanese Buddhist practice, a cremation is the expected traditional way of dealing with the dead, but now with the death toll so high, crematoriums are overwhelmed and there is a shortage of fuel to burn them. Local municipalities are forced to dig mass graves as a temporary solution.
#

A resident explains his fears during a town hall meeting on the impact of radiation exposure from the nearby leaking Fukushima nuclear facilities, Tuesday, March 22, 2011 in the town of Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
#

Efforts to spray water into the No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, are seen in this March 22, 2011 handout photograph released by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
#

Machiko Shimizu, a graduate from Okirai Junior High School, wipes her tears during a graduation ceremony at Okirai Kindergarten at Okirai district in Ofunato March 23, 2011. Classes stopped when the junior high school was hit by the March 11 tsunami. Students were kept away when it was used as a temporary morgue for earthquake and tsunami victims. On Wednesday, the students returned for a simple graduation ceremony held for 10 boys and 19 girls.
#

A farmer drains milk into a pit in Iitate, in Fukushima, northeastern Japan, in this photo taken by Yomiuri Shimbun on March 23, 2011. Japanese authorities had temporarily advised against allowing infants to drink tap water in Tokyo due to raised radiation levels and the United States became the first nation to block some food imports from Japan, saying it will halt milk, vegetable and fruit imports from areas near the tsunami-damaged nuclear plant because of contamination fears.
#

Ryo Taira (right) and an unidentified man lift a young porpoise out of a flooded rice field after it was swept there by the earlier tsunami in Sendai, Japan, on March 22, 2011. Taira found the porpoise struggling in the shallow water on Tuesday and after failing to net it, waded in to the field, which had yet to be sown with rice, to cradle the animal in his arms.
#

Most Recent

An alpenhorn performance in Switzerland, a portrait of Vladimir Putin made of spent ammunition from Ukraine, Prince Charles surprised by an eagle, wildfire in California, a sunset in Crimea, and much more.

Since 1992, Red Bull has been organizing Flugtag (“flying day”) events around the world, where participants build and pilot homemade flying machines off a 28-foot-high flight deck above a body of water. The aerodynamic qualities of many of the creatively built aircraft are questionable, and most do not so much fly as... plummet.